If it's my last breath: as certain as death Following the money There’s a juicy little scandal unfolding in in Liechtenstein — whose national slogan might as well be “Why Pay Taxes?”

Spies, whistle-blowers and threats: tax haven is called to account The day that Toytown went to war, the traffic stopped. For more than a week Liechtenstein (population 35,000) and Germany (population 82 million) have been locked in an extraordinary row involving spies, bankers, a whistle-blower with a shady past, a furious prince – and tens of thousands of well-heeled but anonymous tax evaders. From Britain, from the United States, but, above all, from Germany.

Revelations concerning payment by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) of £100,000 to Heinrich Kieber, a former Liechtenstein banker, for details of secret offshore bank accounts held by British taxpayers raises a serious moral dilemma about how tax evasion is combated in modern times.During the 17th century the practice of rewarding informers was reviled by the common law, with Chief Justice Coke describing informers as "viperous vermin" who "vexed the subject for malice or private ends".But the ending of the Star Chamber precipitated a paradigm attitudinal shift. Writing in the 18th century, Jeremy Bentham described an informer favourably as a servant of the government employed in opposing the enemies of the State Certainly by the 19th century it was common practice for an informer to receive a moiety of any penalty recovered in a revenue matter.In 1868 Parliament codified the position by empowering the Commissioners of Inland Revenue at their discretion to reward any person who informed them of the commission of a revenue offence.The present law is wider and enables HMRC to pay a reward to any person "in return for a service which relates to a function of the Commissioners or an officer of Revenue and Customs

• Haven of fears; [Helping evasion is distinct from legitimate tax competition. Monaco or Bermuda or Switzerland are fully entitled to set low rates of personal and business tax to attract wealthy individuals and companies to their jurisdiction. What is not acceptable is helping those who live elsewhere to evade the taxes that they owe Haven evasion ; Trounced on tax: raids aim to halt Europe's havens ]• · Tax authorities tread fine line. Australian Financial Review, 06/03/2008, Editorials, page 78. Wealthy Australians with bank accounts in 'unco-operative' tax havens such as Liechtenstein and Monaco must be opening their copies of The Australian Financial Review with trepidation these days. The shield of tax haven bank secrecy is easier to pierce, and now the case of the stolen Liechtenstein bank records is taking on a life of its own….We should not be too squeamish about this. Concealing income from tax authorities is blatant evasion without even the pretence of legal avoidance, and a serious crime that deserves to be prosecuted with the full weight of the law. But tax authorities must exercise their powers properly. And governments of rich countries need to accept that their high taxes make the tax evasion industry more lucrative. There appears to be a change in the political mood ; Helping evasion is distinct from legitimate tax competition. Monaco or Bermuda or Switzerland are fully entitled to set low rates of personal and business tax to attract wealthy individuals and companies to their jurisdiction. What is not acceptable is helping those who live elsewhere to evade the taxes that they owe List of tax havens • · In the 1980s and 1990s, the public began to protest the large compensation packages executives were receiving. Average workers were struggling while executives got raises, even as the corporations they worked for failed. This disconnect between executive compensation and executive performance led Congress to attempt to curtail executive compensation. In 1980, the average CEO made 42 times the average hourly worker's pay. By 1990, the average CEO made 107 times the average hourly worker's pay. In 1993, Congress enacted tax legislation intended to rein in excessive executive compensation. However, in 2000, the average CEO made 525 times the average hourly worker's pay. Compensation amounts that executives receive since the enactment of the tax provisions are increasing dramatically, not decreasing. Money for Nothing and the Stocks for Free: Taxing Executive Compensation• · · Linkage between tax and financial accounts is common in Europe, although it takes varying forms. This does not result in complete book-tax conformity, however, and recent developments in accounting may be increasing divergence rather than reducing it. Despite the strong arguments in favour of conformity, there are also good reasons for some divergences, meaning that the most likely outcome in any system, whatever the starting point, is partial convergence Financial and Tax Accounting: Transparency and 'Truth' • · · · The next bubble must be large enough to recover the losses from the housing bubble collapse. How bad will it be? Some rough calculations. Bubble of black tulips

Monday, March 03, 2008

In 1906, the first Public Service Commissioner, Mr D McLachlan, observed that: The great incentive, which is ever present to the businessman, is, by the very nature of things, absent in public administration. The department of the Civil Service which he administers (or assists in administering) is not his own; he suffers no personal loss; he enjoys no personal gain; and why should he bother? Why should he incur the odium of his subordinates by enforcing strict discipline and insisting on continuous and undivided attention to duty? Why should he addle his brain and burn the midnight oil in studying the literature of other nations for improved methods when he gets no special thanks for it, but probably finds himself in the end for little better off financially than if he had allowed things to drift along in the old way? These are the questions commonly put to himself by the perfunctory official and they constitute one very potent reason why Civil Service administration has not attained the high state of efficiency that the public interest demands'

On 01 Mar 2008 Alex Mitchell, New Free Kid on the Blog, writes | The Australian Financial Review | Alex Mitchell is the former state political editor of The Sun-Herald and former president of the NSW parliamentary press gallery. The Labor Party in NSW has bred a particular type of political animal, and they're running the show, argues Alex Mitchell. A state of disgrace

Beyond the surrealistic headline: Is Old South Wales: Ripe for a revolution? The battle to break Britain's crime lords Career criminals used to treat a spell in prison as an occupational hazard, confident that they would soon be revelling in their ill-gotten gains. Now the police are seizing millions in assets, from racehorses to holiday homes. But are they making a dent in crime’s £18 billion annual bill?

Experienced policemen are hard to shock. You name it, they’ve seen it, bagged it or banged it up. In April 2005, however, squads from four Midland forces, making a crack-of-dawn “swoop” near Market Harborough, were treated to a sight which, as one officer puts it 2½ years later, “still makes my jaw drop”. On the dot of half past six, 350 officers from Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire raided a number of local addresses, including seven on the Justin Park travellers’ site, where they had “reason to believe” some shady deals were being made. “Operation Lucky” was what they called it, and they couldn’t have chosen better. It didn’t take them long. In a scene reminiscent of Treasure Island, they dug into a traveller family’s garden and levered out a weighty, lozenge-shaped parcel trussed with gaffer tape. Their own video shows an officer tearing at it like a child on Christmas morning.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

If you don't build your brand online, through either a blog, participation in social networks, or your own Web site, not only can people not find you, but you will have no way to portray your value and creativity.At the same time, he says that any job recruiter is likely to search for your online presence, and that means you want to make sure that your brand stands up to such scrutiny. Blog and be real - On the Job: Personal brand a big bonus in tough job time

For those who wish to understand the struggle in the Government's breast, Who Runs Britain is essential reading They hadn't heard of hedge funds, monoline insurers or subprime mortgages, but Marx and Engels would have been unsurprised by the effects of the credit crunch and the market turbulence of recent weeks. In The Communist Manifesto's paean to the achievements of capitalism, they observed that its salient feature was "everlasting uncertainty and agitation" where "all that is solid melts into air" Spectrum of Spectrum on global scale

Who runs Britain? The Super-rich and How They’re Changing Our Lives by Robert Peston

Surprise, surprise. As the bastions of the world financial system come crashing to the ground, a small voice cries from the ruin. It is that of the goddess, greed, assuring us she is still good. In 2005, the retailer Philip Green paid himself £1.2 billion from his stores empire. He conduited it through his “offshore” wife to avoid tax and received a knighthood from Tony Blair. Last year, the 54 billionaires said to work in Britain were estimated to have paid just £15m tax on earnings of some £126 billion. Four thousand City employees received bonuses of £1m or more, and if any of them paid the 40% tax the rest of us pay they were mugs. Most will still receive the same bonuses today.